Playstation as CD-player

PS1 turn on issue

I've used my playstation as my CDP for a few months now and I must say it sounds great having modded it IAW Mick's pages. Now the problem. I just recently moved and it seems to have quit working. The safety switch is engaged (closed down) and when it comes on I get the initial rotation for 10 seconds or so, the tone plays but then I cannot get it to start. I've tried two known good controllers but still nothing. Anyone have any ideas? (I've plugged and unplugged cables, engaged/disengaged the interlock switch, etc.) Thanks in advance.
 
Voltage Drop on Bias and Gain

Hi y'all, I've started modding my PS 1002 and something that I have discovered is the voltage reading on the gain will drop by about .20 volts over the course of 2 hours of play and a .11v drop on the bias. I discovered this after initially allinging the laser to where it would read a problem disc which can skip in a certain spot. I adjusted everything until it would play through the "skip zone" repeatedly which finally had the laser at 11.5 MV, the bias at 17.18V and the gain at 18.25. Satisfied with my work I reassembled the PS and enjoyed a couple discs without problems I then tried the "problem" disc that I used to calibrate the laser and this time it skipped in the bad spot! Puzzled by this I got out the multimeter and saw the voltage on the gain had dropped down to around 18.06 V and the bias to 17.08. So I put them back to 18.27v & 17.18 and went to bed. 1st thing next morning turned it on & found that the gain was now reading at 18.49! I also noticed that the voltage appeared to be slowly dropping whilst playing so I let the disc play all the way like 3 times monitoring the voltage on the gain, bias and laser. I found that after intial powerup my PS will slowly drop about .20 V on the gain and and around .10V on the bias over the course of 2 hours of continuous play before stabilzing. The laser intensity did not seem affected at all. My solution was to continuously play cds for 2 hours until the voltages stabalized and then adjust things to where everything plays but of course now in the first hour of turning it on the voltage is higher than needed. I've also seen that just stopping play for a minute and starting again will slightly raise the voltage again and this will level out in minutes. I guess it builds up some voltage in idle mode. Also some discs will give higher or lower readings with as much as a .08V variance. Anyone else experience these phenomenon?
 
Hi all.

Just got a 1001 PS1 after reading the review in the latest Stereophile, and must say I am very impressed.

One problem with my unit is that it will only play one cd before needing to be reset, or switched off entirely for a few seconds. I'm wondering if it has anything to do with the above post re voltage drop? Any suggestions welcome.

I'm also curious about the reports of needing to have it switched on for a few days to sound its best. This true to your ears? Might it due to temp changes? I'm wondering if having to switch it off briefly after each cd puts me back to square one each time?

cheers
B.
 
bvan said:


One problem with my unit is that it will only play one cd before needing to be reset, or switched off entirely for a few seconds. I'm wondering if it has anything to do with the above post re voltage drop? Any suggestions welcome.

hmmm this is odd as my unit "1002" defaults to cd player and will just load each disc when i change them. Could it be that this an issue with the 1001 and not the the 1002? The voltage drops I've
observed will really only affect a disc with a defect.
 
Ehem, just had to answer to this...

tabarddn,

a) Study Plastic Case, metal and quality signal retrieval do not go hand in hand.

That's a myth, sorry... a metal case can even improve signal quality, by serving as a RF-shield... it comes all down to implementation...

B) Good (not great) CD trans, However mounting is tweaked by Sony to allow some toughness to the design. So trans is in effect floating. Removes signal killing/muddling vibration Great.

If you open up a few CD players, you'll see most of their transports are floating...
The transport of the PS is absolutely standard, nothing fancy at all. The great sound comes from something else. We'll get there.

Now hears the question. Has anyone looked at using the two available output and using the PS1 in balanced Mode. Can it be done or is this one step to far.

You can do that, if you change the output circuitry (just install an opamp in correct configuration to make it balanced). Would be worth the trouble if you also have an amp with balanced input. You won't pick up any inteference over the cable like this anymore. Otherwise it's useless.

On PS1 disc tracking. A good mod for any CD/DVD player is to add a small LED blue light into the player area. Naim have used this for years. As well as improving laser tracking it also improves the sound to a small degree.

Sorry to be direct :smash:, but that's in the snake oil category...
Actually nobody has ever proved that it improves anything... the're even people saying it might worsen the tracking, due to light having influence on sensibility of receptor diodes... although it's another wavelength, it could still cause less sensibility... I don't know if that's true, but I'm pretty sure it won't improve anything...

Now, to the question Sergelisses asked, and to the sound of the PS1:

it's useless to try and use the PS1 only as a transport... because it's transport characteristics are very mediocre, nothing fancy at all... it's the digital data procession, the DAC and the whole implementation of the electronics, that make the sound so good. So, you'd actually rather try to feed I2S signals from a good transport, to the PS1 board. But I don't think the hassle is worth it. Besides, people say the clock of the PS1 might be one of the reasons for good sound, so you wouldn't want to mess that up, with another transport...
 
joydivision said:
Ehem, just had to answer to this...


Sorry to be direct :smash:, but that's in the snake oil category...

Actually nobody has ever proved that it improves anything...

the're even people saying it might worsen the tracking, due to light having influence on sensibility of receptor diodes... although it's another wavelength, it could still cause less sensibility... I don't know if that's true, but I'm pretty sure it won't improve anything...

...

Maybe you could re-phrase that in...nobody that I know of has ever proved......(sorry I make sometimes simular statements myself ....hahahaha)

The blue laser light (among red and green) is sometimes used in laboratoria where they need to work with lasers eg. for precision-measurements to measure proteine by diffraction....
It is said by their scientists that the blue light has less optical noise than white light...so the measuring can be done in a more quiet environment for the laser ( more accurate )...

A french guy saw the benefit in digital-audio and claimt he invented it, and gave a rather non-technical and sometimes dead-wrong explanation why and how it worked.
Obviuosly as a result enormous discussions followed.
........despite this other audio-brands said they experienced the benefits and started to use it as well in their models...

I myself have experimented with blue led and in my set-up and in my perception it worked ......the stage became somewhat bigger and less background noise...
 
Erik, sure, nobody I know of has ever proven that. Fair enough :)

But:

The blue laser light (among red and green) is sometimes used in laboratoria where they need to work with lasers eg. for precision-measurements to measure proteine by diffraction....
It is said by their scientists that the blue light has less optical noise than white light...so the measuring can be done in a more quiet environment for the laser ( more accurate )...

You said it all: white light. This means: blue light can help, in the case of existence of other, white, ambient light around... But in a CD player, normally there is NO light at all, except for the laser beam, and that's the way it should be, I think :)...
So, unless you're planning to have an open transport (so ambient light can get in), I don't see any advantage of including a blue LED...

I myself have experimented with blue led and in my set-up and in my perception it worked ......the stage became somewhat bigger and less background noise...

OK, I respect your findings, but still, have you ever did a blind listening test? I suppose no... and unless you do that, it could very well be "auto-suggestion", something very easy to happen, when we modify something and would like to hear a difference (although there might be none).
 
Hi guys..I gave the playstation a listen about two weeks ago and was really impressed. However, I could not play cd-r's without a scratching sound. I looked around and found this http://dogbreath.de/PS1/LaserAlignment/Laser.html I did all the adjustments and it did not help. Even tried putting the multi meter down and manually adjusting it by ear, listening as the scratches became less, but I could not get them to go away.

So..I bought a replacement laser assembly and it's not working right at all. As soon as I got it I adjusted the laser intensity to 11.4mv and the bias to 1.70v. However when I went to adjust the gain it wasn't responding to the adjustments. In fact it was reading the same as the bias. So I hooked the old laser assembly back up just to be sure it wasn't just me, and I had no problems getting the laser intensity at 11.4mv, bias at 1.70v and gain at 1.82v.

Is there anything I'm overlooking? Any suggestions? I would really appreciate any help at all, thank you.

Joe
 
gtaebr

The caps are soldered to the top face of the board.

I took mine out by heating one leg and gently pushing the cap sideways to lift the pad clear of the board. Heat the other leg and lift it off with tweezers.

I would take all the caps off that MickF says, it gives you more room to work and the second pair are easier as you can get your iron in with the first removed.

Beware though, his photos make the caps look much bigger than they are.

I'm lisrening to mine now (Dreadzone)

John
 
Hi there everyone.
Eighty something pages is a lot to read, so please forgive me if the question has already been asked.
Comments have been made around the web (6moons) that this player is equivalent to a $6000 cd player.
So just for confirmation does the Sony playstation beat a Rega Saturn or Cambridge Azur 840c?
 
Well, you just asked the most polemic question :D
Answer: Try for yourself ;)

If you want my opinion, I wouldn't say it's equivalent to a $6000 player... unless you mod it very heavily, and even then I'm not sure... but it is a very good player, that's for sure, better than many mid-end hifi-players out there... :)